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New Jersey’s Hilltop opens second store

CRANFORD, NJ (BRAIN) — Hilltop Bicycles of Summit, New Jersey, opened a second, larger location in nearby Cranford on Saturday, April 20. A grand-opening celebration is planned for the first weekend in May.

The 2,400-square-foot store was built out in the same vein as the Summit location, opened just a little more than a year ago, with an open layout and bar by the service area so customers can interact with service staff, said Tom Dunn, who co-owns Hilltop along with partner Sam Cooper.

In addition to carrying such brands as Giant and Focus, the new location has also picked up Cannondale. “That’s huge for us,” Dunn said.

The Cranford store will stock a full range of bikes, from children’s models to top-end road bikes. “Cranford is more family-oriented. Summit is more performance-oriented—we just brought in Ritte and Moots there,” Dunn said.

Dunn and Cooper set up the new location in a onetime liquor store that they gutted and remodeled in downtown Cranford, an up-and-coming and densely populated neighborhood drawing many young professionals who commute to Manhattan, Dunn noted. A CrossFit gym just a few doors down also draws active people to the area, he added.

The Cranford store will quickly start staging group rides, which Dunn hopes will draw some cyclists away from the Summit location and make group sizes more manageable. “We offered group rides out of Summit and they immediately caught on like wildfire. Rides out of Cranford should help split that up,” he said.